Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Judicial
Watch announced today that it has obtained
records from the Department of the Air Force revealing the Obama
family 2015 Christmas vacation to Honolulu, Hawaii, cost the taxpayers
$3,590,313.60 in flight expenses alone. According to the Air Force records, the
Obamas used both Air Force One and a Boeing C-32A, the military equivalent of a
Boeing 757, which was apparently use to transport the First Lady.

Judicial
Watch also has obtained
records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revealing that
President Obama’s four trips to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Palm
City, Florida in 2014 and 2015 cost taxpayers at least $286,416.64 for Secret
Service travel and accommodations. The Obama trips to New York and Los
Angeles were solely for fundraising events. In Chicago, the president
campaigned for Rahm Emanuel. The Palm City trip was a golf outing with no
official activities.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Media bias is everywhere. And this
morning, when reading about the misdemeanorcharge of assault against Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, in Florida (an incident involving Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields on
March 8 -- over a couple of weeks ago -- that was shown to be a nothing-burger),
and then looking at the video that shows that nothing happened to warrant the
charge, you just knew it was going to be bad for Trump.

Did we expect non-stop crawls on CNN and
Fox, keeping viewer attention on the charge of assault? Turned on the TV to flip between the two stations. Yup.Wall-to-wall
crawls. The report in the crawl was technically correct -a charge WAS filed against Trump’s campaign
manager. And that’s all that was needed to get the lyin’ media coverage. Never
mind that the charge is baseless.

And here is what will probably happen, if they run true to form.
The lyin’ media will run the headline as long as they can (and they've been including shots of the stop-action video that would make
it APPEAR that there was some basis in fact for the charge, when in fact, there
is no “there” there, as Gertrude Stein would have said). And maybe in a few days, or in a week or
two, the charge will be quietly dropped, and if the lyin’ media covers it at
all, they will bury it.

And that’s the technique. Burn that impression into the
viewer’s mind for a few days, and you’ve done the job. No matter whether it’s false, retracted, or withdrawn. Damage is done.

The tactic today got the lyin’ media a twofer:
it shoved the Ted Cruz "Cuban Mistress Crisis" off to the side, and it threw mud
at the Trump campaign.

Monday, March 28, 2016

A
wealthy businessman with tea party ties confirmed Sunday that he is mounting a
primary challenge to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan,
saying that after donating to the Wisconsin Republican’s past campaigns he
feels “betrayed” by the speaker on trade deals and immigration.

The
businessman, who is not yet revealing his identity, promised that his run will
“shake up the establishment in a profound way,” according to a political
consultant close to the prospective candidate.

The
emergence of a viable Republican challenger in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional
District is the culmination of a monthslong recruitment effort by tea party
activists who say they were double-crossed by Mr. Ryan when
he passed a $2 trillion spending package late last year.

Eric
Odom, a conservative activist and political consultant in Wisconsin, confirmed
with “100 percent certainty” that a local business leader would be running to
oust Mr. Ryan.

Republican
elders, desperate to stop Donald Trump, are increasingly convinced they would
rather forfeit the White House than hand their party to the divisive Manhattan
billionaire.

That’s
why the party’s establishment is suddenly rallying behind Ted Cruz, a man
they’ve long despised and who has little chance, in the view of many GOP
veterans, of defeating Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Ohio
Gov. John Kasich said he isn't willing to serve as anyone's vice president, but
he indicated party affiliation would not matter to him when choosing his own
running mate.

After
losing the Arizona primary and trailing a candidate who is no longer running for
president, Kasich hit the campaign trail in Wisconsin and told voters only he
could beat the Democrats in November.

He
ruled out the possibility of serving with any GOP nominee, but would not oppose
putting a Democrat near the top of the Republican ticket himself in November.

“I'm
going to be nobody's vice president, OK?” Kasich said, interrupting a
questioner at a town hall in Wauwatosa. "I will not be anybody's vice
president. Just so you know."

So, he
won’t run for Vice President on the GOP ticket, but if nominated for President by
the GOP (presumably nominated
at a brokered convention, since mathematically he cannot win with delegates), he’d be happy choosing a Democrat as his running
mate?!?!

Who’s
side is he on? Actually, it looks like he’s on the side of the elite
establishment political class, both GOP and Democrat (the so-called Uniparty). He’s accepted
campaign contributions from George Soros and his surrogates; see CTPP’s earlier
blog here. The GOPe does not care whether it wins or loses, as long as the
elite noses are still in the trough. And Gov. Kasich is part of the elite’s
game plan.

Check in was slow
but reasonably controlled. Super-long lines. I've never seen turnout like this.

Got my credentials,
but no presidential ballot. They said those would be delivered to our caucus
room.

Got to my caucus
room. I counted about 120 people there (no idea how many were actually
registered and credentialed).

We elected Precinct
Officers, State Delegates, and County Delegates - the typical incompetence and
ignorance of the rules you'd expect to see from volunteers, but all went
somewhat smooth.

...Then came the
Presidential Ballot.

Someone shows up
with a stack of probably 250 ballots. The precinct chair splits them up, and
starts handing stacks of them out and tells people "take one and pass it
down".

No checking
credentials, IDs, NOTHING.

I'm sitting at the
end of a row and people start handing me stacks of extras.I literally had over 50 ballots in
my hand.

We were told to
mark our vote and place our ballot in a tin can. They then asked for a
volunteer to hold the can. At this point, most people filed out the door.

I cast ONE vote,
then stuck around to see what would happen with the votes.

About 15 minutes
later, with only about 10 or so people milling around, someone walks in the
room with an envelopes STUFFED full of "absentee" ballots - some
envelopes having 2-5+ ballots.

I raised a question
and said, "isn't there an absentee process already in place? Didn't people
have to register for that last week?" and was told "Oh no, this is
completely normal".

As I've mentioned
in other threads, I was in Party leadership for 6 years and no, this is
absolutely not normal.

I then asked if I
could observe the vote count, and I was told my observations were not needed
and to leave the area while the ballots were being counted.

I left the room
(things were already a complete Charlie Foxtrot at this point) and wandered
over to my friends precinct caucus to see if it was just as much a cluster.

His caucus was just
getting to the presidential ballot, and as I walked in the door I was handed
ANOTHER BALLOT.

Again, no
credential check, no ID check, NOTHING.

No, I didn't vote
again...

I went back to my
precinct and they had the results:

74% Cruz

14% Trump

11% Kasich

Now just imagine
this kind of outright incompetence/manipulation happening in 2000 precincts
across the state.

As I left the
building, I started overhearing results coming back from other precincts...
Overwhelmingly numbers for Cruz... Like 70-90% or more. (In one precinct Cruz
got around 100, Trump had 2, Kasich 0).

Bottom line... They
basically are going to post whatever the hell numbers they want.

There were no
apparent controls, no credential checks, no ID checks, and ballots being handed
around like napkins.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Lots of Tea Party people liked
Ted Cruz’s filibuster to oppose Obamacare. Remember when he read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham?

But more recently, there has
been some unnerving news about Ted Cruz. It’s bad enough that Glenn Beck
seems to have gone off the rails with extreme statements and behavior, but now he is claiming
that Cruz is the anointed priest, the “Fulfillment of Mormon Prophecy.”

Earlier reports described Cruz’s
“dominionist” father Rafael Cruz who “indicated that his son was among the
evangelical Christians who are anointed as “kings” to take control of all
sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the “Seven Mountains”
mandate, and “bring the spoils of war to the priests”, thus helping to bring
about a prophesied “great transfer of wealth”, from the “wicked” to righteous
gentile believers. The YouTube video is here(h/t Conservative Treehouse).

This blog previously posted why
there are problems with Cruz’s eligibility as a natural born citizen.

This is all scary stuff, even
if Cruz drops out of the race. Gov. Kasich cannot win enough delegates
mathematically, so that leaves two alternative scenarios: [1] Donald Trump goes
into the July convention with enough votes to meet the new rules of 1,237 delegates
(he is presently at 678, Cruz at 423) as well as winning 8 states with a majority
(not plurality) of delegates, or [2] the first vote is inconclusive, and the
GOPe heads for the backroom to engineer the subsequent vote(s).

Friday, March 18, 2016

Over the last several months, this blogsite posted articles and links to expose the source of
campaign funds for the leading candidates. Those candidates were Jeb! Bush here, Ben Carson here, Chris Christie here, Ted Cruz here, Marco Rubio here, and Donald Trump here.
I did not include Governor John Kasich, because at the time, his role in the
campaign appeared to be limited to siphoning off votes from top contenders. He
succeeded in winning Ohio, but he is still not a serious contender, because
mathematically, there are not enough delegates left in future primaries to put him over the top. But
Ohio voters might still be interested in Gov. Kasich’s campaign funding
sources. From Life Site News two days ago:

It took the Ohio Governor 29
tries, but he finally won his first state in the GOP primaries. In
Tuesday’s GOP primaries, Ohio’s Governor John Kasich won his home state, and
one of the most important states of the general election map.

Although it is now a mathematical
impossibility for Governor Kasich to reach the necessary 1,237 votes to win the
GOP primary nomination outright, the Ohio Governor has vowed to stay in the
race, betting on a brokered convention along with a suspension of the
convention’s rules to clinch the nomination.

As a point of explanation,
Governor Kasich is not only mathematically shut out of the nomination based on
delegates, but also on the fact that a candidate must
win at least 8 states before he can be considered for the
convention’s ballots. This appears highly unlikely given the Governor’s
1-28 record to date.

However, there may be a
different reason for Governor Kasich to remain in the race, and that can be
discovered by following the trail of his donors.

A simple search of Governor
Kasich’s 2016 Presidential campaign donations lists the Soros Fund Management
as the sixth highest individual donor with $202,700. The seventh largest donor
is the Duquesne Family Office with $150,000. On the Super PAC side,
Kasich’s New Day for America received $150,000 from Stanley Drukenmiller (who
operates the Duquesne Family Office) and $200,000 from Scott Beset, who is
employed by the Soros Fund Management.

Scott Bessent served as
George Soros’
chief investment manager until late 2015, while Stanley Druckenmiller
currently manages $2 billion of Soros’ hedge funds. Clearly, these three names,
George Soros, Scott Bessent, and Stanly Drukenmiller represent George
Soros just as New Day for America and Kasich for America represent Governor
John Kasich.

In total therefore, George
Soros, personally and through surrogates, has donated over $700,000 to Governor
John Kasich’s campaign.

The Open Secrets pages are here and here, listing contributors. Hopefully
those in other states who have yet to vote in their primaries will learn about
this.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Political
parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican
convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump
rolled up more big primary victories.

“The
media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s
the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North
Dakota [and a Republican convention rules member], told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on
Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland
is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support
for any one candidate because their states and territories don’t hold primaries
or caucuses.

Even
with Trump’s huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the
odds are increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the
1,237 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination before the convention.

This
could lead to a brokered convention, in which unbound delegates, like Haugland,
could play a significant swing role on the first ballot to choose a nominee.

Most
delegates bound by their state’s primary or caucus results are only committed
on the first ballot. If subsequent ballots are needed, virtually all of the
delegates can vote any way they want, said Gary Emineth, another unbound
delegate from North Dakota.

“It
could introduce Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, or it could be the other candidates
that have already been in the race and are now out of the race [such as] Mike
Huckabee [or] Rick Santorum. All those people could eventually become
candidates on the floor,” Emineth said.

Former
Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for
president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.

"If
we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the
above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here.
"They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the
above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

Wading
into the GOP nominating battle for the first time since leaving office last
fall, Boehner said that "anybody can be nominated" at the convention
in Cleveland this summer.

The GOP establishment / elite (GOPe) couldn’t
breathe life into the Jeb! campaign. Then they tried to push Marco Rubio as the
Jeb! surrogate and that maneuver failed. Gov. Kasich’s job in the race was to
deprive any momentum candidate of the 66 Ohio winner-take-all delegates. Kasich
succeeded, but otherwise it is now a two-candidate race. Neither Cruz nor Trump
is acceptable to the GOPe. So we are seeing the GOPe preparing to force a brokered convention. And it's now out in the open.

This report estimates the
annual costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local level to be
about $113 billion; nearly $29 billion at the federal level and $84 billion at
the state and local level. The study also estimates tax collections from
illegal alien workers, both those in the above-ground economy and those in the
underground economy. Those receipts do not come close to the level of
expenditures and, in any case, are misleading as an offset because over time
unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers would replace illegal alien workers.

With Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-FL)’s presidential hopes diminishing as his personal demons catch up with
him—from his relationship with
billionaire Norman Braman to his role in pushing Obama’s amnesty—the donor
class seems to be turning its eyes to John Kasich’s last stand in Ohio.

The hope seems to be that
a Kasich win in Ohio will not only deny GOP frontrunner Donald Trump delegates,
but will also create a new vehicle for arriving at a contested convention.

Because the Kasich campaign was
largely ignored as a non-factor prior to Rubio’s polling collapse, Kasich
went months with virtually no scrutiny of even his most bizarre
statements on the campaign trail.

However, in recent
days, Trump has increasingly set his sights on Kasich—whether it be
Kasich’s role at Lehman Brothers during the time of the economic collapse, as
well as Kasich’s support for NAFTA and Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership
agreement—a deal which Donald Trump and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have
warned would destroy Ohio’s auto industry.

In particular, Trump has zeroed
in on Kasich’s heretofore overlooked push for massive amnesty. Though it has
transpired without much attention, Kasich has quietly amassed a string of
bizarre, peculiar, and extreme statements on immigration that places him to the
furthest leftward reaches of not just the Republican President field, but the
Democratic Presidential field as well. This perhaps underscores an element of
seriousness to Kasich’s previous declaration, which he had intended in jest: “I
ought to be running in a Democrat primary.”

Below are just some of Kasich’s
most bizarre and radical statements on immigration, which have flown under the
radar.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Gov.
John Kasich criticized the Trump campaign for creating a “toxic” environment inthe GOP race for the presidential nomination, blaming the Trump campaign for
the thug violence that resulted in a rally being postponed the other day in
Chicago. But the thugs are the usual suspects: MoveOn.org, Black Lives Matter, and Communists, among others (via Gateway Pundit).

At
the Cleveland rally at the IX Center, protesters lined the access road into the
parking lot, but a few made it past security and tried to disrupt the rally.
They were thrown out, and Trump supporters chanted “Trump. Trump, Trump” while
the thugs were removed. No violence.

As Trump said, it’s not Trump supporters
who are disrupting rallies. It’s those who are supporting, in particular,
Bernie Sanders.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Internally, Kasich's team is
encouraged by what they see happening on the ground. Save for a series of ad
buys and a few appearances in the state, they've seen little else in the form
of an organization from Trump in the state. Marco Rubio, focused solely on
survival in Florida, and Ted Cruz, aren't planning any stops in the state.

The
only remaining campaign stops in Ohio before next Tuesday's primary are tomorrow,
Saturday, March 12, both rallies for Donald J. Trump:

Secretary
of State John Husted has finally responded with a press release that includes
the following:

State
election leaders say there is nothing unusual about the ballots, urging voters
to choose their candidates in both columns.

Cleveland
Tea Party Patriots’ Ralph King confirms that a voter’s principal choice is for
the Delegate-at-Large, but a second vote for a District Delegate / District
Alternate does not cancel out or affect the at-Large vote. So vote twice for the
candidate of your choice.